MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

LIBERTY.*

I.

THE Court of OPPRESSION is crowded

The pale mob have crouched to his power-
The face of dear England is clouded—
The slave mocks her comfortless hour;
The noblest are goaded to madness,
The wise, and the free, and the brave:
And LIBERTY rising in sadness,

Like a spirit disturbed in the grave,

Reproachfully cries, through the gloom of the night, "Have the race that I loved so deserted their right?"

II.

Oh, no! If the basest are bowing—

The coward, the courtier, and slave

Yet still there are hearts that are glowing,
And hands that are ready to save;

And fatal and brief is the gladness

Of thy foes, mighty Queen of the Sea!

The despots that urge them to madness

Shall feel the revenge of the free;

While LIBERTY hails the triumphant endeavor

Of the race she hath loved so, and will love for ever!

* Written many years ago.

SOLITUDE

I.

I WAKE from dreams of pleasures past,
That came from slumber's mystic land ;-
Their light yet lingers-like the last
Sweet flush of glory, warm and bland,
When sinks the sun behind the hill,
Yet leaves his pathway brightened still.

II.

But as black night a shadow flings
O'er lingering daylight's latest gleam,
So raven care with ebon wings
Eclipseth each diviner dream,

'Till earth appears a temple lone,

The lights all quenched, the guests all gone.

III.

I sigh for some familiar face,

I sigh for tones that grief control,

I mourn the solitude of place

But more the solitude of soul;

For when love lighteth not the gloom

The lone heart liveth in a tomb!

STANZAS.

TO A LADY, ON RECEIVING FROM HER A BEAUTIFUL FLOWER.

I.

A DEED of grace-a graceful gift-and graceful is the giver! Like ear-rings on thine own fair head, these long buds hang and

quiver :

Each tremulous taper branch is thrilled-flutter the wing-like

leaves

For thus, to part from thee, sweet maid, the floral spirit grieves!

II.

Rude gods in brass or gold enchant an untaught devotee-
Fair marble shapes, rich paintings old, are Art's idolatry;
But nought e'er charmed a human breast like this small tremb-

ling flower,

Minute and delicate work divine of world-creative power.

III.

This flower's the Queen of all earth's flowers, and loveliest things

appear,

Linked by some secret sympathy, in this mysterious sphere; The giver and the gift seem one, and thou thyself art nigh, When this glory of the garden greets thy lover's raptured eye.

MYSTERY.

THERE is strange life in things inanimate,
Or things so called, and in this mortal state
An immortality! There are no bounds

To life but MYSTERY, and that surrounds
All forms of earth, and, with its dread control,
For ever checks the proud impatient soul,
Whose aims at hidden things are grasps at air,
Whose eager gaze is but a blind man's stare.
Bewildered with blank nothingness-(a dense,
Objectless glare)-how oft a horrid sense
Of loneliness and littleness prevails,
While the frame trembles and the spirit quails.

But, oh! this dream-delirium may not last-
We wake-and when the hideous spell is past
The mystery remains, but not the fear :-
We know that God himself is everywhere!

And while this faith can animate and bless

We feel not lone, forlorn, and fatherless.

With humbled thought, calm hope, and sweet content,
We cease to sigh for things for man unmeant,
But wait the uplifting of the curtain vast

By hands unseen around the wide world cast.

STANZAS.

I.

I LOVE on summer mornings bright

To see the sun's uprise,

And watch the clouds, late hid in night, Assume a thousand dyes.

II.

I love to see the meadows green
Bedropped with golden flowers,
And hear the low winds creep between
The perfume-breathing bowers.

III.

I love to see the lucid stream

Steal all unruffled by,

And, fair as Fancy's fairest dream,
Reflect a softened sky.

IV.

I love to hear the sudden sound

Of birds amid the trees,

The sear leaves rustling on the ground, The pleasant hum of bees.

V.

I love to see, like hills of snow,

The white unmoving clouds,

And thin gray vapors gliding slow,

Like silent shapes in shrouds.